


in my house the silence rang so loud

by pinuspinea



Series: Swan Lake remixes [6]
Category: Swan Lake & Related Fandoms, Лебединое озеро - Чайковский | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25801165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinuspinea/pseuds/pinuspinea
Summary: Von Rothbart hesitates and Odette nearly dies.Snapshots of guilt and a curse broken on accident.
Relationships: Odette & Swan Maidens, Odette/Von Rothbart (Lebedínoye Ózero | Swan Lake)
Series: Swan Lake remixes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824241
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	in my house the silence rang so loud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Swan Lake comment club](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Swan+Lake+comment+club).



> Dear Swan Lake comment club, thank you for inspiring me with your infinitely kind and wonderful comments. I hope that this fic will show how even a "happy ending" can be bittersweet for these characters.

It only takes a small moment of distraction, such a small moment. He feels Odette's fear and the flapping of her wings, and he blinks and frowns, trying to make sense of the scene, but that is too much. The arrow pierces her wing. She plummets from the sky, and even though he pushes against her falling body with all of his magic, it isn't enough.

He finds her broken form on the shore, a body covered in blood, pale and limp and still. He kneels over her and, with a shaking hand, feels for her breath.

"I can't live without you," he murmurs in between rushed spells. "I love you."

Her feathers turn into skin. The swan becomes a woman with a broken body. He carefully gathers her in his arms, blood seeping into his clothes. The swan maidens worry around them. He only focuses on getting their queen to safety.

Odette's unconscious body in his bed is nothing like he imagined it would be. She remains much too still, unmoving with her chest barely rising with halted breathing.

He heals until he is about to collapse in exhaustion, and then he crawls into the library and pulls tomes from his shelves that he hasn't opened in ages. He returns to her side and tries to focus on the thick medical texts with a careful eye kept on her rasping breathing.

* * *

Her body is an artwork of broken bones and watercolour bruises. He keeps an eye on her while she remains unconscious, and he notices immediately when she starts stirring. Night has fallen long ago. He immediately gets up and goes to sit next to her, waiting anxiously for her to open her eyes.

She moans in pain before opening her eyes. He doesn't touch her, too afraid of hurting her unnecessarily.

"Where is the pain the worst?" he asks in a quiet voice. She looks at him blearily. He moves his hands over her skin and searches for any injuries he may have missed earlier. She whispers half a word when his hands pass over something, and he pushes his magic to its limits, his hands always soft and gentle and afraid to touch.

* * *

That night, he falls asleep in the armchair he dragged to be by the bed, and when his dreams let him go for a moment, he opens his eyes and freezes in fear. The sun is shining on them both, and for a moment he is afraid to see a dead swan in his bed, but there is nothing like that. Odette's pale face is illustrated in light and haze, and he watches it for a long moment before getting up and closing the curtains.

When he returns to the chair, he can't stop himself from kissing the brow with no scratch on it. Her eyes flutter and their gazes meet. She looks dizzy.

"You should rest a little more," he tells her softly. "I'll go get some food."

She's barely awake when he returns with the simple meal, but stirs when he settles next to her. He holds the bowl for her and watches as she tries to feed herself with her non-dominant hand, but she is clumsy and weak. Eventually, he gently takes the spoon from her and feeds her until she is no longer hungry.

"Why are you taking care of me?" she asks in such a small voice. He looks at her and lowers the bowl and the utensils to rest in his lap.

"It's my fault you were hurt."

Her wide and wondrous eyes study him like they have never studied him before.

"You weren't the one to shoot me," she says.

"But I should have stopped your fall and I didn't."

She frowns but doesn't argue back. Eventually, she falls back asleep. He studies her bruised form for a long time before returning to his armchair and waiting for her to stir again.

* * *

Those hazy early days when Odette is just starting to heal are interrupted by insistent knocking at the front door. Von Rothbart is nearing a breaking point when he stomps down the hallway and opens the door to the rude knocker, fraught and a mess.

The royal guard stares at him with a half-open mouth that he snaps closed. Von Rothbart raises his brow.

"Yes?" he asks in a scathing voice.

"Are you aware that the king's body was found at that shore not far from here?" the guard asks and points towards the lake. Von Rothbart stares at that direction and the many people gathered on the shore. It's odd to see humans where he is used to seeing swans.

"My Odette took a nasty fall," he murmurs, his brain finally starting to catch up. "I've been taking care of her. The king is dead?"

He vaguely remembers seeing a hunting party at the opposite shore of the lake. Now as he studies the swans that have spread all over the lake, he spots darkened wings and beaks that are bright red like they are covered in blood.

"He must have really angered the swans," he murmurs and blinks against the brightness of the morning sun. The guard is looking distrustfully at him.

"May I see your wife?" the guard asks.

Von Rothbart opens the door a little wider and heads towards the bedroom. Odette has stirred and is in the process of pushing herself into a sitting position. He immediately heads towards her and supports her back with soft pillows. She's squeezing the blankets tightly against her chest, looking in fear at the royal guard who seems surprised that von Rothbart was not, in fact, lying about her condition.

"What's going on?" Odette asks in her frail voice. He takes his usual place in the armchair and leans against the back, exhausted yet still having to keep up appearances.

"Apparently the ruckus at the lake was the king trying to hunt the swans," he tells her. "They probably took their vengeance out on him."

Odette lets out a small breath.

"They tried to shoot the cygnets," she tells him. "I saw that before…"

"Before you fell," he replies, telling her the cover story. The guard clears his throat.

"Did you see anything else?" the guard asks. "It seems odd that a few swans could have killed a whole hunting party."

"Oh, but they can be vicious," von Rothbart murmurs. "Beautiful and elegant, but vicious. Best not to anger them.

He's quiet for a moment, looking for words. Odette continues the lie for him.

"We didn't see what happened to the hunting party. I've been in and out of consciousness and Wolfgang has barely left my side."

The guard looks confused. He shuffles on his feet.

"I'd better leave then," he murmurs and tries to nod respectfully. Odette says a quiet goodbye and watches as the stranger leaves the bedroom. Von Rothbart waits until he hears the front door closing before focusing on Odette.

"Why am I still a human?" Odette asks in barely a whisper. "How can your magic work from so far away and even in daylight?"

He hesitates, but eventually he answers her. He always answers her.

"I don't know," he tells her. "The spell may recognise that you would otherwise come to great harm, or it may think marriage equal to staying in my bed, or it may be something completely unrelated."

She stares him for a long moment and then nods, her lower lip worried between her teeth. When she asks for water, he goes to fetch her some even though there is a full canter on the table next to her.

* * *

Odette heals slowly, but each day is a little easier than the one before. He reads to her and amuses her and wonders how long this could ever last. She's so soft as she curls up against his body, listening to his voice when he nearly stutters. She's so lovely as she smiles to him when she wakes up, sometimes alone in the bed, sometimes breathing next to him. And she is so beautiful as she determinedly learns her alphabet and starts making sense of the texts herself but still preferring to hear them in his voice, following the text along the page.

Her bruises fade and her bones knit together, but the scar on her arm where the arrow pierced her does not disappear, though not for a lack of trying. Eventually, she is whole again. She holds onto his arm as they slowly make their way outside in the moments before dawn. Her steps are short and lack their usual grace, but he doesn't mind. He simply wishes that this morning the sun wouldn't rise, but just like every other morning before this one, it does not listen to his wordless plea.

They sit on the stone bench in the garden and wait for sunrise with uncertainty. She closes her eyes. He pulls his hand away and looks at her, scared of how the transformation may hurt her even though she is healed by now.

The sun comes up and she remains a human.

Odette opens her eyes slowly. She stares at the morning sun with a pale face that remains human, and slowly their eyes meet. Something breaks inside of her. He catches her into an embrace and rubs circles into her back as she cries.

Eventually, she tires herself out and falls asleep against his chest. Slowly and trying his best not to wake her up, he carries her back into the house and lays her to rest on his bed, and then he leaves her alone.

The rooms in the house are tall and gloomy, almost lifeless. He studies them for the first time properly and tries to imagine how she would like them, and slowly, his magic changes them. Light flows in, stillness of air changes into freshness, colour returns to his world, but it will all be for nothing if she does not stay.

While she sleeps, he transforms the house. He makes place for her, makes the rooms feel like she has always belonged in them, imagines how she would like the house and transforms it to be so, and throughout it all he hopes it will be enough.

He makes himself a new bedroom in an unused and empty room with dark blue walls and he wonders if he'll ever be invited into her arms again.

* * *

She looks like a lost duckling in her new dress. Times have changed much since she was a girl and he doesn't quite know if he likes her like this. She studies herself in the mirror and the practical dress that is so different from her usual style yet hints at it. She turns and shakes her head. The curls settle to frame her face again. She meets his eyes in the mirror.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this," she murmurs as she studies the dress. It's subtle in its beauty, nothing like the frivolous things some women wear. She's not one to drown herself in lace or frill, her tastes lying in simplicity and the rustling of the fabric. There's much that still reminds him of swan feathers in that dress, much that still is the same.

After the fourth morning spent in the garden, stubborn as she always has been, she finally has started to believe that there will never come another morning when her fingers turn into feathers.

The world is very different than the one she remembers. She will have a lot to learn about, but he knows that she can adapt to it. If he's lucky, maybe he'll be allowed to teach her what has been going on outside their lake and the forest.

"What will you do now?" he asks and she stops on her tracks. Her eyes lower and a frown forms on her brow. She sits down on the bed, her bed, and stares at her fingers. Carefully, afraid of being told no, he comes closer and sits across from her. He desperately wants to touch her, hold her, but she now has much more power than ever before.

If he makes a single mistake, she may fly away from the lake, never to return.

"I don't know," she says oh so quietly. She looks lost just like she has been ever since she fell from the sky. "I don't know what I want to do. If I stay here, they'll think of me as your wife, won't they?"

There's no point in denying that, so he won't. There are no tears after his confirmation. She simply sits there, thinking about it.

"This is my home," she says in a small voice and looks up at him. He tries to not let his hopes grow, but it is oh so difficult when he realises that perhaps she doesn't want to leave.

"You'll always be welcome here," he tells her and pulls the ring out of his pocket. Her eyes sharpen, but as he makes a thin silver chain out of air, they become more curious than angry. "They'll look for a ring. We can say that you broke your hand and your fingers badly enough that it hurts to wear it."

She accepts the necklace but doesn't put it on. Instead, she studies the ring that started it all and then she turns her back to him. Obligingly, he slips the chain around her neck, closes the lock, and then steps away.

His ring rests against her collarbones. How horrible it is to see her wear it like this.

* * *

He stirs to her climbing into his bed and glances at her, suddenly wide awake. Her face is shadowy and mostly hidden from him, but everything in her screams how shaken she is. He makes room for her under the covers and gently wraps her into a hug.

She still shivers after the nightmare, but the worst of it passes soon enough. She listens to the steadiness of his heartbeat and finds comfort in his company and in being held, just like before but nothing at all like before. Now, they share a bed. Before, they shared a shore or a patch of cool ground.

He lies awake long after she has fallen back asleep and buries his face in her hair.

* * *

Their arrangement becomes easier to uphold. There's a steady trickle of people now entering the house, curious to meet the woman many have heard rumours of yet so few have seen. Odette finds their company easier to tolerate than he does, but she also needs her time alone.

They live like hermits in their house by the lake, two hermits who rarely venture out into the world. The one time Odette comes to the village with him, she is so overwhelmed that it takes hours on hours to calm her down again.

He doesn't ask her to come after that, but always lets her know when he leaves.

It's still so odd and new for them both, being around so many people. Most seem to think that they are recently arrived newlyweds taking over the lands that have belonged to his family for generations. It's oddly close to the truth yet still so horribly off.

Odette still wanders the shores of her lake and finds company in the swan maidens, though some of their guests are horrified by how he allows her to go anywhere near the swans that killed a king and his entire hunting party. Von Rothbart usually glances at Odette whenever the people say so and mutters something about how the swans adore Odette and how they are more likely to hurt anyone who thinks about hurting the woman.

Early mornings are the hardest for the former swan queen. Odette often leaves the bed and the comfort of his body and wanders aimlessly the shores of her lake, a scarf on her shoulders whereas before she did not feel the cold. The swans, all black and beautiful and a horrible reminder of what happened, gather around their queen and comfort her. She is the only pure and light thing amongst a sea of black feathers and blood-red beaks, but she still is their queen even though she no longer is a swan.

Sometimes he goes to her and tries to comfort her. More often he lets her grieve in peace.

* * *

She somehow looks less small in his eyes. He doesn't mind, just relieved to see that she still changes even though her transformations are no longer as dramatic or instantaneous. Her wrists no longer look like they are ready to snap. Her form fills out just enough that she no longer looks sickly nor frail, simply soft and beautiful.

There are other things he doesn't pay much attention to, but soon enough the coincidences are too many. One day, he finds her in the library like he knew he would, and she has a spell book in front of her that confirms what he has already thought.

Her lips move slowly as she reads, and she nearly jumps as he sits next to her and studies the text himself.

They are quiet for a long time. Odette mouths the words in the book and then she brings her hand to the waist of her dress, the waist that is already becoming rounder.

There is a small spell and a light they both see.

"A daughter," he manages to say. Odette looks up at him and then back at the light, the evidence that it is real, that they will have a child.

He only realises he's been crying when she wipes away his tears. He gives her a smile and kisses her knuckles and imagines what it would be like to have a family with her.

* * *

Fewer swan maidens keep their guard on the lake, but he thinks of it as a side effect of the increasing guests to the house. Most of their visitors are not very keen on the swans, after all, and typically either try to shoo them away or keep far, far away from them.

Odette hides her pregnancy underneath her new clothes until it can no longer be hidden, and then they get bombarded with well-wishes and even more visitors. Their guests start bringing their wives and mothers alongside them and sneak them up on Odette who is much too shy to tell them off, but von Rothbart always makes certain that they don't pester his Odette too much.

They talk of their own experiences with children, of how their pregnancies have gone, and slowly, Odette starts to open up. Her hesitant questions turn into genuine conversations and friendships. With the wives and mothers all around her, she starts forming a new type of court, a court where she is a queen as much as she was among the swans, though no one else seems to notice it.

Von Rothbart simply is glad that Odette has found people she likes. He's been far too afraid of a future where Odette remains lonely even when there is no more need for that.

She talks hesitantly of a daughter she cannot wait to meet, and some of the women try to convince her that her stomach is too upturned for a girl, that she must be expecting a boy, but she simply shakes her head and smiles and cradles her growing stomach and talks about a long-awaited daughter.

They build their little swan princess a nursery together. She will have his old study, the room closest to the bedroom that overlooks the lake. Increasingly often, Odette will pull him into bed with her and talk the long hours of the night with him about whatever crosses her mind, but they never talk of the child even though he sometimes feels for the growing life as well, even though he sometimes speaks quietly to their daughter.

Their daughter's room is ready long before she is ready to enter the world. Sometimes they stand by the cradle together and imagine quietly what their daughter will be like, but never saying a word.

Eventually, he breaks the silence.

"Do you have any particular name in mind?" he asks. Odette looks up and caresses the soft, white linen linings. She seems hesitant.

"Would you leave it to me?" she asks, quiet and confused. He kisses the crown of her head and remains near, wanting to feel her completely.

"It's enough to know she is mine and yours," he tells her and gently touches the roundness of her middle. She is quiet for a long moment, studying the cradle in detail. She seems to see something more than he does, but he does not ask what it is. If she wants him to know, she will tell him.

"I need to see her before giving her a name," she says. "To make sure it is the right name."

He understands what she means. He always does.

* * *

On a morning when the birth of their daughter cannot be too far away, he sits in the garden and counts the swans in the flock over and over, studies each one and counts and restarts again and again. That is how Odette finds him, sitting on that stone bench and counting swans. She waddles over to him and nearly sits in his lap, so close they are.

"There are fewer now, aren't there?" he asks, a little uncertain. He thought he would have noticed swans disappearing, but then again, he has had much in his mind for so many months now. Odette hums and sees them. She knows them better than he does, knows all their variations in more detail than he could ever even though he made them. They were her court, after all.

They sit there and he counts the swans, and eventually, she slips her hand into his and he looks at her. He's curious about that serenity and its source, but he doesn't question it. He simply allows her peace to calm his soul and stops counting.

A few disappearing swans cannot mean anything too important, after all.

* * *

Odette goes into labour when their house is filled with guests. The womenfolk try to shoo him away, but Odette clamps onto his arm and looks at him with frightened eyes. He smiles to her and caresses her hand.

"Don't worry," he murmurs and guides her towards the bedroom the womenfolk are already quite busy preparing. "I have you."

She's remarkably quiet. Her face is crushed into a concentrated frown and she holds onto his hands tightly, not once allowing him to leave, but he wouldn't do so for the world. The wives and the mothers cluck their tongues and look disapproving, but they will hardly argue against the young woman who is going through labour.

He soothes her and wipes her hair away from her face and encourages her with soft words all the while his fingers weave small, invisible spells over her and their daughter.

The baby takes in a large gulp of breath and lets it out in a loud wailing. Odette is delirious and tired by that time when Wolfgang is given their daughter. The womenfolk focus on the new mother, and reluctantly, he gives the child to a friendly wife just so he will be able to subtly heal Odette and help her aches and pains.

Odette falls asleep. He gives her brow a kiss and then accepts their daughter, a daughter who is so perfect, a daughter who will join them together in more ways than marriage ever could. He leaves the room once he is certain Odette will be fine, and then he faces the men who have been left waiting.

They congratulate him and ask for a name, and he pauses as he studies the child.

"Odette had a name in mind, but she fell asleep. I suppose she'll tell me once she's awake again," he muses as he hushes the baby and hums a low tone. Their daughter listens to it and calms down, and he keeps on humming a low tune he remembers hearing when Odette was still a girl, still just a girl.

The gentlemen raise their glasses and their eyebrows, but he doesn't care. He smiles at their daughter and thinks that, perhaps, this will keep Odette with him.

* * *

Their house is quiet with just the three of them. He sits next to her on the bed with their daughter, waiting for Odette to wake up, tired yet radiating happiness.

"I have a name for her," Odette murmurs before she opens her eyes. He weaves his fingers into her hair and rubs her scalp. She blinks her wide, wonderful eyes open and looks at them and at the daughter, and her smile is so soft. She seems almost afraid to touch their child as if they were two strangers.

They both are clumsy and laugh nervously as they coo at their child. He can barely take his eyes off their daughter for a short moment to make sure that Odette is fine, and she looks a little lost as she studies the new-born. Already there are hints of the child resembling her mother quite a lot, but he has seen his own eyes reflected on the tiny face.

He never thought he could ever care for someone else like this other than Odette, but he finds himself proven wrong.

"I think her name is Odile," Odette says softly. He looks at the child in detail.

"Odile it will be," he states and then kisses Odette's cheek.

They sit there, studying the child in the early morning sun until Odile starts crying, and then they take care of her together and lay her down in the crib they prepared, in the nursery they built together.

Odette pulls him to the bed with her. She presses her head against his chest and he kisses the crown of her head.

"Sweet dreams, Wolfgang," she mumbles and closes her eyes. He lies there for a long while, simply basking in the feeling of her.

"Sleep well," he says. "I love you," he says.

Her fingers tighten around his arm. The silence in his house no longer feels like a tomb, but a home.


End file.
